


Promises, Promises

by Anonymous



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Gen, Kidfic, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-06
Updated: 2009-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:05:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On promises, even when you don't know you're making them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises, Promises

> I practice with them three hours a day—so that when I meet a pirate, I can kill it! ~Will Turner

"What would you have me do, lad?" Bill asked. "Make promises I couldn't keep?" He almost wished he could, his heart tore so at the look on Will's rounded face, but he'd not lie to his son, and to claim he would stay would be to lie.

"Don't want you to go," his son said stubbornly. The mud on his hands was bright yellow—probably from horse piss—and the dried blood from his split lip made his mouth look not at all like a child's, but like an old man's. Sometimes Bill wondered if his namesake was a changeling, left by the faeries in place of the squalling red thing he'd been warned to expect. He'd found an uncanny replica of himself, with darker, shorter hair and no scars, but himself all the same, and couldn't help but worry it meant he'd owe Them a payment in years to come.

"I go, but I always come back," he said.

"Someday you won't." Will sounded so utterly, utterly sure, and so very old, that Bill couldn't quite disbelieve him. He loved the boy, in a way he did not think even Jack loved that ship of his, but there were times when the idea of being a father was still more terrifying than his first broadside. "There're pirates out there. Mam said."

She had indeed.

"There are, Will, lad, but they've never hurt me yet," he said. "I won't let them this time, either."

"Promise?"

"Promise." It was not quite a lie. All of Bill's scars had been acquired ashore, in fights in Tortuga or Lambeth Bay, over drink or dice, and most from sailors on other ships, whom he could not swear were pirates, even if the odds were what they were. As long as Bill kept his distance from the first mate as best he could, he had no doubt that he'd survive this journey as well as the last.

"Don't die." Bill crouched to look his son in the eye.

"I can't," he said. "Got to teach you how to fight. 'Twas ashamed to see you rolling about with those gutter rats, son."

"With a sword?" Will sounded so unbearably hopeful that he smiled and pulled the short, curved _kris_ out of his boot.

"Sure, with a sword. Here, take this—no, lad, not that way." He shifted Will's fingers until he gripped the hilt properly. "That's better."

Will was much as Bill himself had been at ten—eager and quick, but Bill was surprised by how solemnly Will listened to his instructions, and how easily adjusted to the awkward swing of the _kris_ he became. He felt a warm rush of pride in his boy, and near sorry for Jack Sparrow, who could never teach the _Pearl_ anything, could never really protect her, could never watch her like this. Will's triumphant yell when Bill stepped back to avoid a clumsy rush could never bettered by the ghostly hiss and snap of sails and rope.

He left the _kris_ with Will when he left at dawn tide, dropping a clumsy kiss onto his sleepy son's hair, grateful that there was no one about to see how Will clung to him, nor how he clung back. "Keep practicin', lad," he murmured, wondering if Will would remember the parting when he woke fully, "and show me when I return."

"Soon," Will said. "And nex' time I'll make sure you don't ever—" he broke off for a great yawn, "get hurt by pirates ever ever."

"That's the spirit," Bill agreed.

He kept his distance from Hector Barbossa, all right, but that turned out to be a mistake. He didn't even know about the mutiny until it had happened, and he was hale and hearty, all his blood warm inside his skin, when they strapped cold iron chains to his ankles and pushed him off the rail into a sparkling, clear blue sea. The pirates hadn't hurt him, they'd killed him.

It was breaking every promise he'd never made to Will, and that was the worst part of dying.


End file.
